AMID EVIL - Heretic/Hexen-inspired FPS from the creators of Return of the Triad mod

[Wunderbar]

gggmanshill liked it.

 

[Valestein]

I'm having a good time with it myself and there's even an enemy in one of the episodes reminiscent of the antlions from HL2 but in glass form.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Gmanfag complains WAY too much about shit that is "unfair" or "frustrating". He did with Sigil too, right? Where he played on ultra violence and bitched about all the times Romero went rape mode on the player. What's this casul shit?

All i could tell from that video is that the arsenal seems to be way better than that of Heretic, but no word on whether level design even remotely compares.

 

[Biscotti]

Aside from selling out, his reviews have declined in quality too. I wouldn't bother with his videos anymore if you're looking for thorough reviews with well informed opinions. Civvie is much better at those, anyway.

 

[d1r]

It's not low res textures, it's 1996 res textures. Quake was made to look as good as possible with the resources of its time, and sorry, but this shit looks like a million times better than anything in this game:

I'll grand your point regarding level design, but i don't remember the Codex having that positive reaction to Dusk either though. Was the level design in that even as good as Heretic?

God, this screenshot is so comfy.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Realism > any artsy shit. You just don't need fancy tech to produce a picture that is both realistic and solid artistically, hence my pet peeve with indie games and their inability to produce something that doesn't look bad in comparison to a game made 20 fucking years ago. But whatever i guess, gotta take it for what it is and this game seems pretty atmospheric.

The big mystery, as i said, is level design. Dusk tried, and to a degree succeed. Level design was one of the stronger points of Heretic, not so much the gunplay. Same with Hexen. Awesome in terms of exploration, puzzles and art design, not so much when it came to the action (i mentioned this somewhere but i always felt they made the levels with the warrior in mind then tried to accommodate them rather poorly for the other classes).

From the footage he shows, all i see is linear progression with the ubiquitous arenas.

 

[Curratum]

Heretic was a lot of fun but the level design was hardly stellar.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Maybe i remember it wrong. Been a long time.

 

[Wunderbar]

It's not low res textures, it's 1996 res textures. Quake was made to look as good as possible with the resources of its time, and sorry, but this shit looks like a million times better than anything in this game:

but this screenshot is from modern mod, not vanilla quake.

 

[m_s0]

Heretic was a lot of fun but the level design was hardly stellar.

An ever bigger issue is how bullet spongy the enemies are. I like Heretic, but it has problems.

I waited to play Amid Evil until full release, and I'm not disappointed - it far exceeded my expectations, actually, since I expected a semi-competent throwback, and instead got a really thoughtful piece of design.

Levels are quite impressive three episodes in. Amid Evil takes setting cues from Heretic and Hexen, sure, but it's actually closer to Quake in terms of everything else, and to the better community maps at that. Every level seems to be built around a clear idea, there's plenty of inventive geometry and solid variation which is further helped by the way the game is structured with shorter episodes. I think the 'arena' impression stems from how huge some of the maps get since you're going to get an arena for a boss fight, but that's about the extent of it - the gameplay relies on standard switch and key hunting. I haven't encountered any puzzles thus far, aside from your basic 'press three switches to activate whatever' Quake 'puzzles'. So no clearing arenas to progress, and no Hexen puzzle/backtracking bullshit (though you can go back to replay levels you finished). So far.

The weapons are fun to use, which is fairly odd for a fantasy shooter. Bonus points for managing to have the starter weapons still retain some utility even later on in the arsenal progression - that's a really cool touch. It's also nice to see someone still considers gunplay and enemy design to be intrinsically connected instead of seeing them as two elements you design separately and just slap together which is the impression I tend to get from most shooters. And there's no sponginess - this caught me by surprise more than anything else in Amid Evil.

If I had to nitpick I'd say the game would maybe benefit from a dynamic music system at times in the first few episodes - and I say 'at times' because even though the music is pretty firmly relying on atmosphere there's moments where this approach works both outside and during fights. Andrew Hulshult delivers once again.

Oh, and I'm not super stoked about the boss fights, but then again I'm not a fan of boss fights in first person shooters. They seem relatively decent here, but the genre doesn't lend itself to the concept all that well, I feel.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It's not low res textures, it's 1996 res textures. Quake was made to look as good as possible with the resources of its time, and sorry, but this shit looks like a million times better than anything in this game:

but this screenshot is from modern mod, not vanilla quake.

It's still Quake, just not bogged down by some of the limitations the original had.

 

[DalekFlay]

Realism > any artsy shit.

You sound boring.

 

[Puukko]

I had been thinking about replaying Hexen recently and was then made aware of this game and criticisms of GGGman's reviews aside, the game appears very promising. Steam had it on a (personalized? wasn't aware Steam did these, but checkout page indicated so) bundle along with Dusk so I grabbed both. I've been eyeing these throwback shooters but only ever thrown them on my wishlist and proceeded to never actually try them, so might as well double dip now.

 

[DalekFlay]

I just played 40 minutes and LOVED it. Much better than Project Warlock, which I am also playing at the moment. Granted that could be because I'm more a Quake guy than a Doom guy but whatever. Everything just feels fluid, the combat is fast-paced and requires lots of dodging and ammo management, it has actual FUCKING QUICKSAVE and it looks gorgeous. The lighting effects can be really stunning. My normal 95 FOV feels a little too wide for some reason, but other than that I dig how it looks a lot. Retro but not simple and cliche, much more interesting and unique. The sword that shoots beams is a cool weapon to try and use since it can hit multiple enemies and has a slanted pattern. Music isn't quite as good as Project Warlock though.

 

[m_s0]

I had been thinking about replaying Hexen recently and was then made aware of this game and criticisms of GGGman's reviews aside, the game appears very promising. Steam had it on a (personalized? wasn't aware Steam did these, but checkout page indicated so) bundle along with Dusk so I grabbed both. I've been eyeing these throwback shooters but only ever thrown them on my wishlist and proceeded to never actually try them, so might as well double dip now.

It's personalized because it's a bundle for which the pricing changes based on what you own or could own. So Dusk in this case. As far as I can tell anyway.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Realism > any artsy shit.

You sound boring.

Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, they all look infinitely better than any "alternative" and "artsy" hipster shit. Much like Diablo 1 & 2 look way better than Diablo 3 or shit like Torchlight. I'm sick of this infantile garbage, i want my games to look serious and real again.

 

[Jezal_k23]

gggmanshill liked it.

What the fuck? He talked shit about Thy Flesh Consumed? What...

 

[DalekFlay]

Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, they all look infinitely better than any "alternative" and "artsy" hipster shit. Much like Diablo 1 & 2 look way better than Diablo 3 or shit like Torchlight. I'm sick of this infantile garbage, i want my games to look serious and real again.

I'm not really sure what we're talking about because most of the games you mentioned don't really look "realistic" to me and have a lot of artistic flair. I'm guessing you more mean "dark" and "mature" rather than realistic. I disagree completely, there's room for many different styles, but that aside I wouldn't say this game looks "infantile" in any way at all. To me it's colorful but not at all cartoony. There's a big difference there IMO.

 

[Lyric Suite]

You probably have a strawman definition of what "realism" means because on the fact you've been programmed to think that "realism bad bzz".

As for there being room for many different styles, tell that to the hipsters, because according to them there's no room for anything else except their meta artsy garbage.

 

[Israfael]

My normal 95 FOV feels a little too wide for some reason, but other than that I dig how it looks a lot.

Yeah, it's weird - it's apparently not vertical, neither horizontal FOV, I tried both 105 and 85 and both seem wrong to me

 

[Corvinus]

What the fuck? He talked shit about Thy Flesh Consumed? What...

He has a horrible tone of voice, just like this reviewer. They could almost be the same person. It doesn't help that they both have "gaming journalist" type opinions... I don't understand why people watch them. They seem like total shills to me.

 

[Siveon]

I just played 40 minutes and LOVED it. Much better than Project Warlock, which I am also playing at the moment. Granted that could be because I'm more a Quake guy than a Doom guy but whatever. Everything just feels fluid, the combat is fast-paced and requires lots of dodging and ammo management, it has actual FUCKING QUICKSAVE and it looks gorgeous. The lighting effects can be really stunning. My normal 95 FOV feels a little too wide for some reason, but other than that I dig how it looks a lot. Retro but not simple and cliche, much more interesting and unique. The sword that shoots beams is a cool weapon to try and use since it can hit multiple enemies and has a slanted pattern. Music isn't quite as good as Project Warlock though.

I'd argue Project Warlock is trying to be more of a Wolfenstein 3D or Rise of the Triad. I honestly prefer when FPS try to go more in the full 3D route, because it feels a lot more dynamic and fun to explore.

What the fuck? He talked shit about Thy Flesh Consumed? What...

He has a horrible tone of voice, just like this reviewer. They could almost be the same person. It doesn't help that they both have "gaming journalist" type opinions... I don't understand why people watch them. They seem like total shills to me.

Not many people on YT cover Doom mods like Icarus does. What does he even shill, GZDOOM? GGMan, well, he's definitely wrong about a lot of things but at the very least he covers obscure FPS titles that are worth playing. Which is good, cuz honestly the FPS indie market is surprisingly thin. Only recently are we getting things of note, and unsurprisingly it's mostly from modders/mappers.

 

[DeepOcean]

Indie developer releases "realist" low budget game:

Codexian edgelords: "Why do this look like shovelware? Everybody knows a lone guy on his basement can make the most realist graphix of the world. After all this time, those clowns can't even release something like Quake and Doom."

Indie developer releases "realist" Doom clone/Quake clone:

Codexian edgelords: "Why after all those years, those idiots are still releasing Doom clones? Where is their creativity? If it is for me to play Quake, I prefer to play Quake"

Indie developers release low budget stylized games because they don't have money for something better otherwise their games would look like complete shit shovelware:

Codexian edgelords: "I refuse to play this childish looking game."

Activision releases the latest Call of Duty game with ultra realist graphix.

Codexian edgelords: "Call of Duty sucks so much that I finished it 07 times to show how shit it was."

 

[Jezal_k23]

Wow. This one is seriously legit. Played the first episode and I'm blown away. I was not expecting it to be this good.

 

[mck]

Does anyone else get really bad motion sickness from this game? I haven't played it yet but watching the gameplay footage makes me feel nauseated